


No Decisions to be Made

by templemarker



Category: Wallander (UK TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holding his grandchild in his arms is a humbling experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Decisions to be Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kate_Swynford](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Swynford/gifts).



> Happy holidays, dear recipient! I took your character prompt to write Kurt Wallander, setting it in the near future after the end of 3x03, "Before the Frost." 
> 
> I do hope you enjoy! Thank you so much to my betas. You guys are the best.

Holding his grandchild in his arms was a humbling experience. 

Kurt was no stranger to the feeling. Some version of it thrummed through him at the sight of each murder he worked, for the life of each person who died. It worsened with children, with young women. With all women. 

Where that momentary grief builds his resolve, this child, so small in his hands, inspired something different. Some nameless positive thing inside his chest; he felt a version of it when he married Inga, and again when he grew close to Baiba. This was nearly identical to how it felt carrying Linda in his arms, seeing her sleepy smile in the mornings. She had been an act of creation, the greatest thing he'd ever done. 

He wondered if she understood that now, understood what being a parent could mean to a person, and what it meant to him. Even in the worst times, when he didn't know what day it was and the bottle next to his armchair was the only thing that drew him away from his office, he would look at Linda, sweet, naturally happy, and know that she would survive as the best of him. 

The front room, where the new parents were hosting close friends and family, was bright, airy, full of laughter. Kurt returned his grandchild to his daughter's arms, and she gave him a knowing look. "Are you really going to stay through tomorrow?" she asked, and he hated the doubt in her voice that he had put there. "It would be really nice if you could bring some oranges on your way from the hotel."

He smiled, more of a half-smile, and said, "That's the plan." She sighed, nodded, knowing it for the precarious commitment it was. 

Kurt had never been able to make her fully understand that it was never about a job, for him. What Kurt and his father had shared, even as they couldn't find a middle ground on so many things, was a _vocation._ They were made to do the things they did, art and investigation, and couldn't conceive of doing anything else. His father's art hadn't killed him, though Povel had expended his last breaths to return to his studio, to return to the vista that had been his companion and inspiration for so many years. 

Kurt couldn't say the same about his own work, but the danger of it was never a concern. There was only ever the victim, and the justice Kurt sought like he would burn up if he didn't find it. 

Linda didn't understand it; neither had her mother. Kurt was absurdly grateful for that. It would have been a different kind of hurt to see his only child consumed to the point of endangering herself--because he wouldn't have been able to stop her from it, like his father hadn't been able to stop him. 

He hovered by the entryway, watching the new baby be fawned over and celebrated. He hoped too, for something he'd never tell Linda--or at least not until the child had become more of a person. He hoped the obsession, the drive for a vocation, hadn't skipped a generation; that the child's parents wouldn't have to fight for everything, that they wouldn't have to watch their kid break their hearts chasing down his future. 

Kurt rubbed a hand over his face, and Inga appeared before him, one of her funny little smiles on her face. She handed him a glass of red wine, and through he paused a moment, he took it gratefully. 

"Strange thing, to be a grandparent," she said, and he nodded strongly. 

"I was never quite sure I'd get here," Kurt said, and quickly added when he saw the shadow pass over her face, "not like that. I mean, I never knew if Linda would be interested in children. We never spoke about it."

Inga considered him for a moment, and said, "We talked about it often, in the year or so before she became pregnant. She was worried about the sort of parent she would be, whether they could handle a child in their already busy lives." She sipped her glass. "They all worry about that, the young ones thinking about a family. If you recall, we had a fight or two, a hundred hushed conversations. But there's our baby, wrestling with the same things. All grown up."

"Not all grown up," Kurt protested. "They're never grown up. Before he died, Dad would send a grocery delivery every month, different days so I couldn't predict it, and keep him from spending his money on me. He would never talk about it when I asked, but he worried about me even when we couldn't speak to each other."

Inga rests a hand on his arm. He's amazed still at her, that she can be so generous with herself even after she needed to leave him, leave him to his life. He puts his hand atop hers; Linda looks at them approvingly for a moment before being distracted again by the baby. 

"Do you know, there are days when I wake up, and I think she's ten again. I'll wake up listening from the sound of her laughter, the smell of coffee from the kitchen. It always takes a moment to recall where I am." Inga smiles. "So I suppose you're correct, she'll never quite grow up for me either."

In the space of a breath, they part, and Inga says, "Linda tells me you'll be staying through tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time off. It means a great deal, to her and Hans. And to me."

Kurt smiles, nods a bit. He's barely paid attention to her daughter's husband; he's never rude, but it's hard to see anything but the man who swept her child away. He and Linda have put it past them, done their best to move on, but Kurt doesn't think he'll ever fully trust him. 

Inga goes to sit next to Linda on the sofa, and Kurt wanders into the kitchen. He picks at the food on offer on the kitchen island, puts his half-empty glass in the sink and pours himself a glass of water. He almost fumbles and breaks the thing when his alert goes off. He pulls it out of his jacket pocket, and tries to muffle it, but he can tell Linda and Inga did hear it. He closes his eyes, sighs out through his nose, and just breathes for a moment, crouched over his daughter's kitchen sink. 

Kurt unclenches his fist to see the text on his phone. _Murder in Sövestad. Decapitation._

He looks through the kitchen doorway, where his family waits; he looks at his station wagon, dirty from the road, sitting on the gravel. 

He pulls up the message again, and stares at it for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a quote by Cate Blanchett: "When something is a vocation, you don't really make a decision about it."


End file.
